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Christmas Concert
18 December 2002
Wigmore Hall, London
Sophie Daneman
Louise Winter
Robin Blaze
Gerald Finley
Chlöe Hanslip
Nicholas Daniel
Harriet Walter
Julius Drake
Ian Bostridge
Programme
JS Bach:
'Kreuz und Krone sind verbunden' from Cantata BWV12
David Matthews:
A Congress of Passions
Francis Quarles:
My beloved is mine and I am his
Benjamin Britten:
Canticle I : My beloved is mine Op. 40
Gabriel Fauré:
Le Papillon et la fleur Op. 1 No. 1
Au bord de l'eau Op. 8 No. 1
Le parfum impérissable Op. 76 No. 1
Notre amour Op. 23 No. 2
Hugo Wolf:
Nun wandre, Maria from 'Spanisches Liederbuch'
Schlafendes Jesuskind
Epiphanias
Interval
T S Eliot:
Journey Of The Magi
Benjamin Britten:
Canticle IV : Journey Of The Magi Op. 86
Maurice Ravel:
Violin Sonata in G
Madeleine Dring:
Trio for flute, oboe and piano (1968)
John Rutter:
The Wild Wood Carol
Johannes Brahms:
Walpurgisnacht Op. 75 No. 4
Louis Emanuel:
The Desert
John Julius Norwich:
The Twelve Days Of Christmas
Victor Hely Hutchinson:
Old Mother Hubbard
Noel Coward:
Parisian Pierrot
20th-Century Blues
The Party's Over Now
What the critics say
The Telegraph, 20 December 2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2002/12/20/bmwig20.xml
Treats and turkeys
It was billed as a two-part affair: a serious concert given by five singers, an oboist and a pianist, followed by a "Christmas cracker" with the same performers letting their hair down and bringing out their party pieces.
But right from the start it felt like a Victorian evening round the hearth. True, the first number was a doleful aria from a Bach cantata, but even that fitted in. For the Victorians, there was nothing like a stiff dose of edifying religiosity to rouse the spirits, and, with the orchestral part arranged for piano, it certainly had the right domestic ambience.
Then came a clutch of pieces that also had a period flavour, even if it wasn't quite a Victorian one. David Matthews's fine cantata A Congress of Passions was only eight years old, but it could have been written in the 1940s (though it was none the worse for that: Matthews's strength as a composer is that he embraces his influences, instead of trying to hide them).
Louise Winter was an excellent soloist, using her thrilling bottom register to good effect. Then the "mystery guest" Ian Bostridge arrived to deliver a finely paced performance of Britten's First Canticle, and there were some stylish Faure songs from Sophie Daneman.
However, all these were outshone by that marvellous baritone Gerald Finley, who sang three Christmas songs by Hugo Wolf. The first of them, Nun Wandre Maria had such a strange tranced solemnity that for a moment the cosy ambience was banished. As it was in Britten's Journey of the Magi, which is becoming as much a fixture in Christmas concerts as Brahms's lullaby.
That was the end of the serious bit of the evening. But the next bit was much riskier, because there's a certain kind of "humorous" light music and verse wheeled out at Christmas that can be toe-curlingly arch. Hely Hutchinson's Old Mother Hubbard and John Julius Norwich's Twelve Days of Christmas (narrated by Harriet Walter) really should be put out to grass now. And Noël Coward's songs need a more exact sense of style than they were graced with here.
Still, Gerald Finley gave a rip-roaring performance of Louis Emanuel's gripping tale of endurance The Desert, ducking under the piano to avoid the vultures and triumphing in the end with a heroically long top G. If all else fails, he could have a great career in panto.